The Baby Sprout Who Bloomed in the Villain Duke’s Family - Chapter 39

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 39
“Take this with you.”
Hestia handed the prepared tray to the apprentice maid.
Today, she could not attend to the Dowager Empress.
For reasons unknown, Anernia had excluded the maids who had served her on the day Clover visited from today’s duties.
In any case, it was not an unwelcome change.
After handing the tray to the apprentice maid, Hestia regarded her with an uncertain glance before turning away sharply.
“Your Majesty, I shall enter.”
Creak.
The apprentice maid rolled the tray in, heading toward where the Dowager Empress was taking her tea.
Hestia remained in place until she saw the tray fully disappear inside, then departed at once.
***
“Thank you very much.”
Clover, clutching a book thicker than her own body, offered a polite bow.
A Book of Ancient Flowers, no less!
It was precisely the book she’d been wanting to see—the very one Belze had mentioned checking for any remaining records in.
‘And she’s giving it to me as a gift.’
She was incredibly lucky. Clover gazed up at Anernia while hugging the book tightly.
“Yes, read it when you’re older.”
‘I want to read it now.’
Clover thought to herself.
Then.
“Your Majesty, I’ve brought the tea.”
The Dowager Empress’s apprentice maid rolled in a tray bearing steaming hot water and sugar.
On it sat a small, delicate cookie for Clover as well.
As the maid poured the tea without a tremor and set down the cookie, Clover stared intently at her.
This was not the maid whom Clover had been frightened of before.
Upon confirming this fact, Kalid’s words came to mind.
‘Father told Her Majesty everything—that there was someone who frightened you.’
So Father really had taken care of it.
‘Father is the best.’
Clover, reassured and smiling brightly, accepted the cookie the Dowager Empress offered and munched it happily.
After handing the cookie to Clover, Anernia added sugar to her black tea and stirred it slowly.
Clover, who had been watching her intently, asked.
“Your Majesty, if you eat like that, can you still drink it?”
“Yes, it’s delicious that way.”
“Hmm, I wonder…….”
“Not yet. When you’re a bit older, I’ll let you taste it.”
“Okay.”
Clover nodded. She had no particular desire to pester for a taste.
‘Pestering children are annoying.’
And she didn’t want to appear as an ‘annoying child’ to the Dowager Empress. After all, one always wishes to show one’s best self to those one cares for.
So Clover refrained from coveting the black tea Anernia was drinking and quietly lifted her juice cup instead.
Anernia drank her tea, and Clover drank her juice.
Anernia gently stroked Clover’s hair, while Clover swung her dangling legs and gazed at Lucky.
It was a peaceful moment.
Everyone present felt the same.
And yet.
In that very instant when all were at ease.
[Wait, Clover……!]
Lucky called out urgently. Clover tilted her head, looking toward Lucky in confusion.
“Hmm?”
[The Dowager Empress, the Dowager Empress—!]
Your Majesty?
‘What’s wrong with Your Majesty?’
Clover tilted her head back to look up at Anernia.
In that instant.
Crash!
The teacup Anernia had been holding fell to the lawn and shattered ruthlessly.
The broken handle rolled across the grass, and Anernia’s body trembled faintly.
“Aaaaaagh!”
“Your Majesty! Your Majesty!”
The attendants hovering nearby screamed. The tranquil courtyard erupted into chaos in an instant.
The shouts drew the Imperial Palace guards thundering toward them. The peaceful moment dissolved as if it had never existed at all.
Yet Clover stood frozen, unable to grasp what was happening, staring up at Anernia with blank eyes.
The attendants’ cries pierced the air as the Empress Dowager’s body began to tilt, slowly, inexorably.
The gentle hand that had been stroking her hair went rigid, and the frame that had been solid as a pillar trembled violently.
Something was wrong.
Terribly, unmistakably wrong.
Only then did Clover reach out with her small hand and grasp Anernia’s fingers.
“Your Majesty…?”
It was in that moment.
Anernia’s Authority.
A thick mist descended over the courtyard in an instant.
***
Ordinary poisons cannot harm an Authority User, for their power protects its master with desperate urgency.
Only one thing can kill an Authority User: their own Authority, or that of another.
And so it was far more common for Authority Users to die when their power went into runaway than to fall to assassination.
Such calamities befell young Authority Users not yet twenty with distressing frequency.
A body still unable to fully anchor such tremendous force could not withstand it—the power would rampage, and the flesh would burst.
Which is to say: an Authority User over twenty had almost no chance of death by runaway.
But now.
‘Runaway…!’
Anernia’s Authority churned inside her body like molten lava.
The power that had flowed through her like a gentle stream all her life now rushed backward, like a salmon fighting upstream, and tore through her from within.
‘Danger—such danger.’
Anernia’s Authority was among the mightiest wielded by any Authority User.
What havoc an uncontrolled mist might wreak upon those gathered here was as clear as fire.
She had to suppress it. Had to, immediately.
And she tried.
But.
‘I can’t!’
There was no way to stop a power already rampaging.
The force leaked from her body against her will, and Anernia felt the desperate urge to scream, dignity and station forgotten.
“Your Majesty, are you all right!?”
“The physician is on the way—please hold on just a moment…!”
The attendants shifted anxiously on their feet. Fighting to keep her mind from drowning in the surging power, Anernia thrust Clover toward the nearest maid.
“Take the child. Take her now.”
Elisia’s youngest daughter.
The child she had sworn to protect, even at the cost of what little strength remained to her. She could not—would not—harm this girl.
“Y-Your Majesty!”
Clover thrashed against the maid’s grip, but Anernia’s strength still held sway. She forced the child into the attendant’s arms and huddled down upon herself.
Anernia Sorren Rosipheron’s vaunted power had become swords and spears within her belly, piercing her again and again. If this continued, Clover would be harmed—only a matter of time.
The Protection of the Storm might shield the child, yet if Anernia’s Authority rampaged here unchecked, no safety could be guaranteed.
“Take her away—go, go now…! Hurry!”
Why? Why had this struck without warning?
There had been no sign, no symptom at all.
Was this merely the body’s decay with age?
Anernia questioned endlessly, her voice cracking toward the attendant.
“Didn’t you hear me? Go!”
The maid flinched and stumbled back, clutching Clover tightly as she spun around.
Kalid’s summoned beast—the North Wind Lion—wrapped itself protectively around Clover’s small frame.
Clover strained against the constraint, desperate not to be torn from Anernia, but a four-year-old child could not overpower the adults who held her.
Just as the attendants began to flee with her.
“…Ah.”
The mist that had smothered the courtyard convulsed like a wave cresting, then inverted upon itself.
And in that moment.
‘Mother!’
Anernia heard a voice.
The voice of the child she had loved with all her life’s devotion.
***
The handmaidens couldn’t flee; their feet were rooted to the spot.
It was inevitable.
Anernia’s Authority was the Mist of Reflected Memories.
As Anernia’s Authority ran rampant and the mist blanketed the earth, those caught in its influence felt their minds turn upside down, churning and tangling together.
Anernia’s Authority burrowed deep into their thoughts, fracturing and dragging forth the wretched memories they had buried and forgotten.
Her Authority was never meant to peer into the memories of those who had not granted permission.
But now, in its runaway state, Anernia’s Authority shattered that boundary, scrambling the handmaidens’ minds into chaos.
It wasn’t only the handmaidens.
The Imperial Palace guards and physicians who had rushed in alarm also found themselves paralyzed, unable to move—their feet pinned by the enormous Authority.
Yet.
“Ugh…….”
Even within that Authority’s grasp.
“Your Highness!”
Only Clover remained unharmed.
Clover slipped free from the handmaiden’s grip the moment her body went rigid.
<Clover, you have to run. The Authority is rampaging—get out of here, quickly.>
Then the North Wind Lion, having reclaimed its form, lowered its head and crouched before Clover.
It was an invitation to mount.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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